A delegation from Libya's foreign oil investment arm Oilinvest is scheduled to meet with representatives from the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) to finalize the purchase of the bank’s 38 percent stake in the Midor Petroleum refinery, located in the Ameriya free zone. The deal has an expected sale value of $400 million, reported Al-Alam Al-Yaum.

Once a joint venture between the Egyptian government and the privately held Israeli Merhav Group, the $1.3 billion refinery began production at the beginning of 2001. In May, NBE bought out the Israeli company’s stake in the project for $150 million.

The original plan for Israel’s largest investment in Egypt was for private Israeli and Egyptian businessmen, with an Egyptian Government minority interest, to build an offshore refinery in Egypt to process a variety of Gulf crudes distributed by the Sumed pipeline and export the petroleum products to Israel and other Mediterranean markets.

As relations between Egypt and Israel soured with the escalation of the Palestinian uprising in 2001 and domestic opposition to the project started growing, the Egyptian Government decided to take full control of the operation. Instead of serving international markets as originally planned, the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) integrated Midor into its domestic refinery system to meet local needs. — (menareport.com)